With little sign in a reduction of stop-and-search under PACE since the Met's supposed change in approach residents and campaign groups in east London are taking matters into their own hands by educating young people of their rights, encouraging the wider community to stop-and-monitor the police as they conduct their searches and orchestrating a culture of complaining everytime a victim is abused or litigating whenever possible.
DESPITE the Metropolitan Police Commissioner announcing a new approach to stop-and-search in January after a report linked its aggressive and repeated misuse to the riots last year, thousands of innocent people are being detained every week prompting concerns that the foundations are being laid for further unrest.
Police officers stop-and-search a thousand people a day in London, according to the Met's own statistics, arresting little over ten per cent. Figures on how many are actually charged are currently unavailable.
While Section 60s, where a stop-and-search can be conducted without suspicion of criminal involvement, have dropped significantly young people between the ages of 10 and 24 – particularly black males – are still being heavily targeted through PACE (the Police and Criminal Evidence Act).
Most are suspected of being involved with drugs or weapons, according to the Met's stats, although most of the young people I have spoken to say they are accused of matching the description of a burglar or robber.
While few are arrested, teenage victims of stop-and-search complain of being manhandled, treated like criminals, and humiliated in front of their friends, neighbours and even parents while hanging out or making their way home from school.
One teenager from Hackney said he missed a GCSE exam after being stopped on his way in to school.
Ondre Roach, who says he has been stopped about 30 times, said: “It affects your confidence. You're just going about being teenagers. We would go somewhere to chill and have a joke after school and then someone would be stopped by the police and it would just change your whole mindset and we would get annoyed and say something and they would say something back and that's when the problems start.”
Original article on IMC London:
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watch the watchers
19.09.2012 13:06
stikitoem